GUFC Men relegates to Championship after dramatic penalty shootout
The inconceivable happened: our men’s team relegated last night to League1 Ontario’s second-tier Championship division, at the end of a tense, exciting match against the St. Catharines Roma Wolves.
After finishing second-last in the Premier Division, Guelph United needed to play a pro/rel “playoff” match against a team from the Championship, in order to survive at the top level of League1 Ontario. The match took place last night in St. Catharines, in front of a lively crowd, and it didn’t disappoint.
Our hosts started the game better, and opened the scoring quickly, in the 17th minute, through Ronaldo Homenszki. After the goal, GUFC started putting more pressure in attack, and dominated the majority of the match, but was unable to find the equalizer until the very end. When all looked lost, in the 5th minute of injury time, Jack Sears got the ball outside of the box, and managed to drive a shot past the home team goalkeeper, Sean Darracott, pushing the game into overtime. It was an intense affair, with the referee brandishing a total of 9 yellow cards between the 2 teams.
Nothing noticeable happened in the 30 extra minutes, so we went to penalty kicks, for the second time in the history of our team (after the 2021 playoff semifinal that we won against Master’s FA). Unfortunately, one by one, Gray Yates, Jared Agyemang and Aiden Borges missed, our only goal being scored by Jacob Cabral. Our keeper Jake Findlay was only able to save one penalty kick, so the shootout ended 3-1 in favor of St. Catharines.
The loss means our team will have to drop down a level in the new League1 Ontario hierarchy, and will play the 2025 season in the second-tier Championship division. It was a result we dreaded, after a bad year that saw our team win only 4 of the 22 regular season games. All we can do now is promise our fans that we will work hard this off-season so that next year we will fight to promote back to the Premier division, and so that our stay in the Championship will be short-lived.
St. Catharines Roma Wolves - Guelph United 1-1 (1-0), 3-1 shootout
Goals: Homenszki (‘19) / Sears (‘90+5)
Guelph United: Findlay - Ferdinand (‘78 Bandula), Fernandez, Obedi (‘111 Ladhani), Clack (‘46 Andoga) - Cabral, Ostrun (‘120 D. Sivanesan), Sears, Yates - Ibie (‘83 Borges), Agyemang.